First Shift 🏒
The Stars were in a bit of a sticky situation on Thursday night.
After taking a commanding 5-1 lead early in the third period against Winnipeg, the lads in Victory Green saw the Jets roar back to make it 5-4 with three minutes left to play. Then, Thomas Harley was whistled for a delay of game penalty, and Dallas had to rely on its penalty kill to seal the deal.
Two minutes later, Winnipeg had just two shots on goal that were saved by Jake Oettinger, and the Stars had clinched a season-opening victory.
Asked how it is to live in a moment like that, veteran defenseman Esa Lindell shrugged and said it’s what they do.
“I feel they have the pressure there,” Lindell said. “We still have the lead and we have been good at PK, so we just trusted our system and it didn’t seem like they had too many options on the last one.”
That’s part of the beauty of this team. In the past three seasons under assistant coach Alain Nasreddine, Dallas ranks second in the NHL in penalty killing success at 82.6 percent. Lindell plays more shorthanded minutes than any player in the NHL, and he is joined by a solid group of penalty killing forwards that include Sam Steel, Colin Blackwell, Radek Faksa and Johnston.
“It’s a good group and we have a lot of confidence,” Faksa said.
The veteran forward, who played last season in St. Louis but returned to Dallas in the summer, said there is a feeling of calm under Nasreddine.
“That was lots of pressure,” he said of the final kill. “They had the best power play in the league last year, and that was a huge moment. But we have confidence in each other, and we just go out and do the job.”
A big reason for the confidence is the preparation that Nasreddine puts the team through. The longtime assistant does excellent pre-scouting, Gulutzan said, and that shows on the ice.
“Nas has been doing it for a long time, so he knows what looks teams are looking for,” Gulutzan said. “He tells them what the other team likes to do, and usually those looks appear, so the guys are very prepared.”
Steel said that preparation brings a calm.
“That helps a bunch, because we really aren’t surprised,” he said. “There’s no panic.”
Which is a huge relief for Gulutzan, who is taking over this season after being an assistant coach in Edmonton for the past seven years. When the Jets closed the gap and a controversial call led to the Harley penalty, there was a chance for the team to unravel in Gulutzan’s second debut behind the Dallas bench. But with players like Lindell on the ice, the temperature came down pretty quickly.
“I think our coach should adopt it, because that’s not how I felt,” Gulutzan said when told of Lindell’s feelings. “That just shows me they’re a very confident group because over the years they’ve proven it time and time again.”